Ashes and Crowns

rtment like a warning. Eliana sat on the edge of the worn-out couch, clutching her favorite patchwork doll, watching her father

red, voice trembli

't reach his tired eyes. "I'm fine,

worse each day, turning deep and painful, shaking his whole body. Medicine was expensive

, her small hands shaking with worry. She didn't understand the s

spair. Gabriel's breaths came shorter, his strength fading. One evening, as the sky outside f

No matter what happens... promise me that you are going

s eyes, but she nodded,

faucet and Eliana's quiet sobs. She held his cold hand, clutching the mem

rs, some pitying her, others cold and indifferent. The landlord grim with imp

ment, clutching Gabriel's old leather jacket, the smell of oil an

reaching for her, the echo of her father's

me Mr.

s that softened when they met Eliana's. He had been Gabriel's friend fo

down so their eyes met. "I'll help you, Eliana. We'll

agile, but

seen before. But it wasn't her home. The unfamiliar walls echoed with silence, and though M

grease and metal, the way he'd brush her hair at night. The w

fire eating a meal he had managed to scrap together,

gston. She lives in a different part of town now

s breat

she whi

hoices that hurt the ones they leave behind. B

sharper than a

doned her, how she wished and longed for her mom's touch but couldn't find it, how her father looked when he had his last breath, but b

uld su

she had